


3/5 is just enough

by gigiree



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Akumatized Marinette, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Implied/Referenced Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-23
Updated: 2016-02-23
Packaged: 2018-05-22 19:16:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6091267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gigiree/pseuds/gigiree
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Marinette sacrifices herself, but gives Tikki to Chat Noir before she is captured. She becomes Marionette, a dangerous akuma who cannot hear or see. It is up to Cursed Jaguar, the amalgamation of Tikki and Plagg in Adrien's ring, to save her. In the process, he must learn to work with others and not shoulder the blame.</p>
            </blockquote>





	3/5 is just enough

It hurts…It all hurts and nothing is okay. But there’s red on her hands that isn’t thread, and the strings that wind their way around her slim wrists and pull at her limbs remind her that _they_ are safe and that it will all be okay in the end.

But the floor is cold and her body is broken. Her spirit is shattering, decorated tragically with cracks spider webbing across from where words have been hurled and impacted and fragmented.

 _“They’re safe.”_ She comforts herself.

But there’s another part, ugly, writhing and twisting that seeps from the cracks and it screams. It sings in her mind, even as she tells herself that there is always hope and that she did the best she could.

 _“You’re weak, so weak.”_ It hisses and it’s this part born from the worst of her that Papillon seeks.

 _“I’m not. I saved them.”_ Marinette whispers to the cold, dank air, but it’s lost to the expanse of the room she’s locked in. 

_“And the others? What about them? The ones you couldn’t save because you were too weak….weak…weak…weak…weak…”_

It’s a broken record playing the despairingly grim melodies of her regrets and she places her hands over her ears and shuts her eyes so that she can’t see and can’t hear.

_Weak…weak…weak…_

She doesn’t know where the words come from, but they seep into her soul and poison her until it all hurts and the pain blends with the physical aches that lace her bones and bruise her ribs.She’s too far gone to hear when the door opens and Papillon’s steps echo eerily against the dark tile. _  
_

“I am too weak…useless…spineless…weak..” She whispers to no one.

And Papillon smiles when he speaks truths of those she’s failed to save and she screams for mercy. He grants her this by taking away her sight, her hearing and her heart.

* * *

 _“It’s all my fault.”_ Has become a sad little game they play. It’s become a sharpened and honed weapon that all willingly impale themselves on with pity in their gazes and anger directed at no one in particular.

In reality, it’s a blame split among them. If Alya and Nino hadn’t been captured, then Chat Noir wouldn’t have rushed in. If Chat Noir hadn’t rushed in. Ladybug wouldn’t have had to save him too. If she hadn’t had to save him too, she wouldn’t have been missing.

This is the blame they share.

They throw it around between them, taking turns voicing their guilt until Adrien becomes sick of it enough to shoulder it all himself.

“You don’t have to call yourself…you’re not…” Nino tries to tell him.

But _No-longer-Chat-Noir_ brushes him off with a shrug of his shoulders and a bitter, but genuine thanks.

He leaps off into the night, no bell to remind him of what he was once and only spots as red as blood to remind him that he is Cursed Jaguar. Terrible, responsible, all-my-fault, Cursed Jaguar who will fight until his dying breath to get her back.

This will be the day he finds her again. It’s been months and still no sign, but he keeps scanning the city, keeps fighting the monsters, but it’s hard to take someone out of their nightmare when it’s made to look like a dream come true.

Papillon, the bastard, knows what people want. He knows where to press and prod until it hurts enough that you surrender and this is the night the Cursed Jaguar will remember this well.

_It’s her._

It’s so obviously her, from the tips of her red shoes and all the way to her red ensemble so traditionally Chinese, that any more doubts would have been foolish to entertain.

Ladybug had never been this easy to recognize. He had never tried to look as hard as he was now because she hadn’t wanted him to know who she was. 

And yet, here she was…as covered up as Ladybug and yet as obviously Marinette as he could have ever asked for. She’s standing in front of him, just a few yards away, but he can’t see her eyes behind her blindfold and the pretty little smile painted on her lips lacks any warmth of fire his Lady had before.

Cursed Jaguar has learned to think first. Not doing so is what had cost him His Lady. And he refused to endanger anyone else.

But it’s hard not to leap forward, to shout her name as it batters against the lines of his grim mouth. It’s hard not to let the emotion well up in his eyes when she spreads her arms out wide and she smiles and says-

“It’s been so long, kitty-cat. I missed you.”

He _almost_ gives in. Because she’s so close now and he can ignore the winding, writhing strings that tighten and glisten against her pale skin because she missed him and it’s _her_.

He takes a step…then two..then three until he’s just within the range of her weaving strings and she sings.

“Come closer, Chat Noir. I love you, don’t you love me?”

Lies…all lies. They’re things he’s grateful for, because they let him know that this small, frigid marionette isn’t his friend or Lady. Too stiff. Her words are too perfect to be real. 

“You’re not her. You’re a _liar_.”

And even as he lunges towards her, and her threads rush to bind him and slice deeper than her lies had, he notices that she cries. Her tears slip from beneath the blindfold, opalescent and precious. It shocks him.

It’s enough for her to escape and leave him with more pains than he’s ever experienced.

It was her…or her in some form, and she’s nothing more than a puppet now…she’s no longer Marinette…but Marionette and she is the girl he loved… _loves._

Nino can’t do much but embrace his friend when he breaks down harder than ever, keening sobs ripping free from a place long buried in Adrien’s heart.

* * *

The second time they meet, he discovers something important.

She’s not the one in control. It sounds like her and looks like her, but the strings that pulls her along and make limbs clack and creak sickeningly against each other tell him she’s asleep at best and dead at worst.

She’s one of the last they will have to save, but Alya is here, and Oh gosh, he wonders if the pain breaking like dawn across Alya’s face was as terrible as his.

“Marinette!” She screams, and her voice cracks something pitiful.

He wants to tell Alya that she can’t hear or see her. That Marinette won’t respond, but that might be half a lie because this doll cries tears.

It’s a horrible, terrible conundrum, and it’s only when Alya comes close enough to grasp Marionette’s pale hands and caress and cling to them with all the love and care she can that Cursed Jaguar finds what he’s looking for.

It’s only when this contact makes Marionette stop her attack on the nearby crowd and rescind her strings and shudder until she resumes her attack that he knows what to target.

Marionette has no sight or sound…but three out of five senses. Alya has just used “touch” to call back her best friend for a second and a half.

It’s a hope he never wanted to have, because it might just be dashed to bits.

* * *

Hope is a terrible thing he finds when Marinette’s parents become involved.

They see their daughter hanging in mid-air, suspended by an entanglement of strings that only seem to grow more numerous as time goes by. She says the worst things.

_“Because you never knew me…because you never cared enough to ask…because you never loved me.”_

The sunset behind them is bleeding into the clouds and Paris shines from behind scintillating smoke and Cursed Jaguar wonders if he’ll ever be able to fix all the damage. _Put the city first_ is what she had said, and he’s trying…but when she floats above them, mocking, wailing, crying, creaking, destroying he wants to say _damn it all_ and save her first.

And Thomas and Sabine DuPain-Cheng stand before the akuma, brave and covered in flour and still smelling of fresh bread to face the very person they have loved for all these years.

They risk their lives doing so, but Adrien had begged them with a pleading note in his trembling voice, and they both know his pain.

If there is any chance at all that they can reach her, it might just be worth all the pain. But Not-Marinette uses her voice and shouts long held insecurities to the two parents.

When Sabine can’t take it any longer, and much like Alya had, she takes a risk to embrace her still daughter, the scent of bread and sweets and _home_ seem to be enough to reach farther into the depths of a soul where Marinette lays dormant. 

“I’m sorry, my daughter. I’m so sorry, Marinette. I love you. We love you so much. Come back.” She cries into her daughter’s hair, whispering comforts even when she still trembles with fear and uncertainty, the wavering strings looming threateningly around them.

Behind the blind fold, tears fall once more and the puppet brings up her hands to the tiny mother’s shoulders. 

Sabine hears one last thing before she loses consciousness.

 _“Mom…I love you too. Sorry._ ”

* * *

The blame game becomes a burden shared once more. But for once, they all agree that placing the blame themselves and taking all the weight of this will not be enough to save Paris or the others.

Sabine is still in the hospital, straining her thin hands against the thin sheets of her bed and crying out at night for a daughter she almost got back. Thomas stays with her and prays that the heroes can do what they’re best at.

Cursed Jaguar…or simply Jaguar….as everyone else knows him, learns to work with the others.

It’s been a long fight, but it’s the last stand and his claws are primed and ready to cut through millions of strings to save his Lady…his princess.

Alya and Nino have taken their guilt and turned it into something useful, scouring the news and using their skills to gather intel on Papillon’s movements and where the akuma will attack next and Marionette sightings.

So that is how Adrien finds himself here. And he looks at his red spots and prays a little that this will be the last day he will be covered in them.

It’s tiring being alone, and he needs his partner back.

It’s how he finds himself wrapped up in numerous black strings, at his wrists, at his neck, on his legs, pulling and digging deep until they become strung prettily with beads of his blood.

“Marinette…We’re waiting. We need you!” He shouts as he pulls farther into her woven web, and she merely stands there, blindfolded and mute until he’s close enough to smell the camellias and hear her soft sobbing.

His hands reach up to cradle her still face, and he winces a little as he smears red on her pale cheeks. She’s so cold and unmoving, but the tears that fall from her are just as precious as they were the first time because it means she can _feel_ him.

Her nostrils flaring means she can _smell_ him, catch the scent that is pine and fresh air and sweat and hard work and faded cologne and … _Adrien_.

His lips are chapped and dry as he presses them against her mouth. He feels the strings strain for a painful second, but then they go slack and Marinette comes alive in his arms. Her sigh is hers and she can taste the salty sadness of his tears mingling with hers. She can _taste._

And then slowly…like the sun rising or the city healing, she begins to hear again.

His words start muted and grow louder and louder like someone tuning into a fuzzy radio signal.

_“inette…waiting…need you…I love you.”_

Then slowly…she can _see._ The blind fold slips from her face, and her strings dissipate like clouds in the sun, and her eyes are wide and blue and awake as she looks at him.

She says sorry so many times after that, burying her nose into his neck and crying until his transformation fades away and she can live and think and feel again.

She almost breaks down when she sees the destruction…but Adrien reminds her _the city first_ and then Tikki leaps from his ring to her chosen one, nuzzling into Marinette’s neck and immediately sliding into her place in Marinette’s once again red earrings.

There will be lots of time to talk after this…Marinette feels it in her spots and knows it in her bones. But _they_ need her now, and he’s by her side. She’s strong enough to face her fears with him always there to have her back.

And they are Ladybug and Chat Noir once again, hands laced together as they move forward to free their city and end the fight.

**Author's Note:**

> THIS IDEA IS GIVEN COMPLETE CREDIT TO @peachbunni AND HER WONDERFUL AND ANGSTY AKUMA MARINETTE AU FOUND ON HER BLOG. If you want more information, please go visit her wonderful tumblr blog and search marionette!au


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